


Cassandra

by dragonofdispair



Series: Unrelated Prompt Responses [13]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime, Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Cannibalism, Dark, Insanity, M/M, Manipulation, Mind Games, Non-Sexual Slavery, Or Is he?, Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing, Prophecy, Prophets, Prowl Is A Lying Liar, Rape/Non-con Elements, Shattered Glass Autobot nastiness, Slavery, Torture, Unhealthy Power Dynamics, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-04-12 03:22:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4463552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since the destruction of Praxus, Ultra Magnus has consulted the mad prophet Prowl regarding the course of the War. He uses the feral under-dweller to construct his battle plans and remain in Prime’s favor. But when the mirror of a dead Autobot joins the Decepticons, things change and Prowl reveals an agenda of his own…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First chapter was originally a one-shot written for the tf_rare_pairing prompt "Any continuity - Ultra Magnus/Prowl - Illusion of Control". At the time I thought it was done, but recently for a writing group challenge I wrote a sequel... then a second sequel... and then I realized I wasn't writing a series of loosely connected one-shots but three additional chapters. ::headdesk::
> 
> Here they are. Mind the tags. These two are not nice and they do not have a nice dynamic at all.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Autobot second in command goes to the depths of Cybertron to consult an oracle about an interesting…problem regarding a newly recruited Decepticon.

_You can’t erase the poet’s fate_

_Not even if you try…_

     —Crüxshadows, _“Cassandra”_

.

.

This place was his secret. It was one of the keys to his power amongst the Autobots. All, save Prime, feared his rages, but rage was not enough to gain rank and power. While rage alone could gain one the Prime’s favor, it could not attract his regard. Ambition, too, was a virtue… but one that could carry a mech only so far, as Smokescreen’s frequent beatings, demotions and punishments could attest. Here was his edge, this secret treasure that he had found in the aftermath of a city’s cleansing and hidden away far from the light of optics and stars, that had elevated him to the first among Prime’s followers.

Footsteps descended the carefully cut stairs into the absolute bowls of Iacon. There were no lifts, no stable ramps that went this deep. Only this tiny sliver of a passage, almost too narrow for the Autobot who now traversed it. The stairs wound back and forth, slick with dirty oil and cloudy acid that dripped from the world above. This far beneath the surface, it did not actually rain, but that made Cybertron’s predictably bad weather into a treacherous game of predicting the next flash flood that would come tearing through like a stampede of vicious zap ponies. And where, at the surface, once the acid had drained from the streets and towers it left them polished or oxidized but acid-free, down here, it _dripped_. It _oozed_ over the surface of the crystal encrusted walls, pooling into a thick, acidic sludge that _crawled_ over the flat spaces of the cliffs and canyons like some organic _thing_ , biting the metal of any who dared traverse the depths.

Light was scarce. His own optics provided most of the illumination, dull red flickering and refracting back to him like a dying fire. Every so often, however, there would be the bright, clear lights of buildings long abandoned and paved over, their electrical systems still intact enough to create an audible buzz and the occasional firework of ancient lighting as he passed. In the distance there were other lights, steady blue and green and red streaks of bacteria and fungi metabolizing the used oil-sludge, acid, and metal of a Cybertron free of the fastidious decontamination procedures enforced by the mechs above.

Potentially, there was energon here, but it was unlikely. The crystals did not like being exposed to the acid from above, though paradoxically they grew on the edges of pools of it. Proper energon mines formed around ancient pools of acid that were completely encased by the metal around them, safe and protected from the weather of above. This place bore the scars, Ultra Magnus could see, of crystals that had rooted and grown on the edge of a sludgy puddle to the size of a scraplet between storms and exploded during the next fresh influx of drips.

He reached the bottom of the stairs, a vast valley of rubble. There were layers beneath this, the rubbled wedged into crushed support beams that yawed over the chasm connecting haphazard platforms of metal. It shifted dangerously. Ultra Magnus did not know how far one could travel down. All the way to the core of the planet, some said, though the scientific authorities of the Autobots all said that gravity _must_ at some point crush the metals of the planet into a single, solid, intraversable mass and that that same gravity would crush a traveller to his base metals long before he reached that point. He was inclined to believe the scientists, most of the time, but here in the heart of this wild cathedral his ember insisted on hammering belief in those fae tales against his processor. He would have offered a prayer, but there was no gods to pray _to_ and so he simply let out an involuntarily reverent sigh.

It echoed over the steady staccato of the dripping acid and the distant vibrations of rubble shifting, settling or falling. A single note hymn, small and insignificant against oppressive silence of wild subterranean Cybertron.

“Does this place frighten you?”

Instantly, targeting software had the intruder sighted. The dull grey mech blended seamlessly into the metallic rubble, visible now only because sharp doorwings had risen to catch the red firelight of Magnus’ optics. Fearlessly the mech’s gold optics flickered on, taking a moment, as though the wires had to be warmed they were so little used. He recognized the mech. This was no desperately neutral underworld dweller, but the very creature he had come to this misbegotten place to consult. He lowered his cannon.

“Of course not,” he hissed back. Still, the depleted Forge of Solus Prime was a comforting weight against his back. To cover his unease he pulled the energon cube he’d brought with him out of his subspace. The mech’s golden optics locked onto the fuel with a desperate, hungry look. He did not know how the mech survived the intervals between his visits, but he always came for Magnus’ offering. “Come. Kneel,” he commanded.

Optics locked onto the rich blue glow of the cube, the mech did so, crawling like an animal and occasionally leaping from one large piece of rubble to another, doorwings spread like those of a stunted seeker’s. He came close enough that Magnus could see the indulgent amusement painted over the mech’s face around those hungry optics, before he lowered himself to kneel at his feet, doorwings spread enticingly. Magnus allowed himself the pleasure of touching the vulnerable appendages, making the mech tremble. With the gold light of his optics spilling across the floor at Magnus’ feet, he could not tell if the delicate shivering was from fear or desire, but whichever it was hardly mattered to Magnus. The cube in his hand was what brought this deep dweller to him; whatever he felt now, quivering under the larger Autobot’s hand was what made him _obey_.

Like a cybercat seeking affection, the mech rubbed his dull red chevron against Magnus’ leg, the sharp metal leaving hairline-thick scratches in dark orange paint. 

“What brings you to the basilica of the lost, the forgotten, the consigned to oblivion?” Ultra Magnus always expected the mech’s voice to be scratchy and filled with the static of disuse, but instead it was steady and almost musical. It would be pleasant, except that the mech was given to nonsensical ravings that made Magnus’ plating stand on edge. “Did you come to dance in the sound of silence, scream in prayer to the unknown depths? The Core of the Planet is angry, Her lifeblood lashes against the furthest shores, stealing diamonds from the inverted skies… you should go and appease Her with the dying gasp of the enemy stars…”

He cuffed the mech to silence. It was not this mech’s _words_ he came for and so he did not answer. Sometimes they were useful, but more often they were nothing. Instead he placed the cube down on the rubble at his feet and watched the mech hungrily lap at the fuel. He left the mech there. He would have paced, save that the rubble shifted ominously under his bulk and so he simply stood to the side, running his optics over a piece of graffiti, long ago etched into the metal when it was new, and even a thousand vorns of acid had failed to erase its meaning. Yet Magnus was, as he always was when he returned to this place, blind to whatever eloquence it possessed. What a thousand vorns of acid had failed to accomplish, a thousand vorns of lingual drift had. The glyphs were unintelligible, refusing to give up so much as a byte of their secrets no matter how long he stared. 

“It’s a prayer,” Magnus whirled, again targeting the mech who had crept up silently behind him, “to the Devourer From The Stars for ‘victory over His foes, such that He may tear their wings from the skies, cast that cursed cannon to the Earth and grind all who oppose Him beneath his tires’.”

With a snarl of the rage for which he was so well known on the surface, Magnus drew the Forge and struck. Those had been the words of Prime’s most recent tirade, while Magnus himself was subjected to both the words and fists of his Prime. He would not mocked. Not by anyone, and especially by this half-mad feral creature. He struck again, sending the mech careening across the scraps of metal. Oxide dust filled the air in his wake and the mech’s mad laughter soon followed.

The laughter brought Magnus back to himself. Without this mech, madness and all, he would be simply another body to be thrown upon the front lines, cannon fodder destined to expend his rage against the Decepticons until his ember burned out. This feral creature had given him the means to climb the ranks, the leverage with which he held his position. He could not afford to lose that in a fit of rage; he was not that short sighted.

The mech cackled again as the dust settled. “The itsy bitsy scraplet…poison in its gullet to bring down this, the most powerful of Primes, towers and temples falling in his wake…”

He lay there, dull silver against the duller blacks and greys of the rubble, gold optics off. He didn’t twitch as Magnus stomped closer, ignoring the way the rubble groaned in warning. Sparks arced from beneath crushed plating, but the mech gave no sign of pain.

“… it’s a fae tale Magnus. Dungeons and dragons and heroes with flaming swords healed by heather bindings and laying with the Witch, warded against all harm.” With a snarl, Magnus settled, straddling the mech’s chest. He needed this mech to _shut up_ or he would not be able to help but to tear the mad, babbling thing asunder in his fury. “Which are you, Magnus? Dragon, or hero, or just one of the hundreds of random obstacles, no more than a speed bump for the Chosen?” Snarling again he ripped the cover from the mech’s interface jack behind his head and slammed his own cord home.

A scream filled the cavern. It started soft as a scraplet’s footstep and built to a crescendo that echoed off the walls, made the dust still hanging in the air tremble, threatened to vibrate the rubble from beneath them both. It filled Magnus’ audios, his mind, his _world_. It was a storm of sound that he could do nothing but weather, as he had so many times before.

At least the creature wasn’t _talking_ any longer.

Golden optics spilled light from the creature’s body as it arched and writhed beneath him, something between pain and pleasure, not quite trying to escape but neither was he trying to entice his captor to touch. Still the scream built and Magnus closed the shutters over his optics, trying to protect the delicate glass from the piercing, painful note.

Finally that note faded, the creature’s body stilled, optics dimming to a dull, sullen yellow and Magnus turned his attention to getting what he’d come here for.

_The Path to the Core is 7.49 degrees to the polar south, a 4.9972 degree decline for the first 9.2223 mechanomiles … lava sparks and magnetism… Magnus will/has come and he will follow the Herald to the doom of all Cybertron… All this has happened, happened, happened…_

The mech had no firewalls. Magnus fell directly into his mad thoughts. They circled like cyberwolves, clawing at his own mind, trying to draw him into the dark madness that clung to the mech like used oil. With a force of will Magnus swept away the nonsensical ramblings — the mech gave a slight whimper of pain — and pushed deeper into his processor.

Here data ticked away with the precision Magnus sought. tick. tick. tick.

Data, pure and unfiltered by thought clicked around him. He knew the exact pressure he was exerting on the mech’s chest, the dual forces of pressure and gravity beneath them, the exact different in their processing power. Magnus’ mind was so much slower than his captive’s. Here, in this unconscious data analysis, he found every method by which the mech could escape his hold, as well as the decision not to. That decision had no reason, made as it had been by the swirling chaos of the conscious mind that Magnus would not analyze, but faced with a computer that knew his every weakness and how to exploit it, he could not deny that this mech chose to submit to him, was not held down by Magnus’ weight.

It was a realization as unwelcome as it was unavoidable, as it always was. With a snarl he continued with his purpose here.

Every scrap of data he had observed, that had been reported to him, he shoved into this computer. This new Decepticon, this brightly colored clone of their fallen comrade Cliffjumper had to be dealt with. The data was placidly accepted. _Upload complete,_ the mech’s thought was for a moment so overpowering that he was drawn into the mech’s thoughts again, _I have become the vessel of the data which heralds the end of days…_ before wrenching himself back down into the advanced tactical analysis computer that made this mech so valuable to him.

The computer hummed with its new data and it wasn’t long before plans started unfolding like the gossamer webs of circuit spiders in the connection between them. They spiraled out, branching, branching, branching until they met their unavoidable ends. This was what he’d come for. He ripped the plans from the mech’s unconscious mind before doing the same to the interface cord that connected them.

He came to himself to the sound of the mech’s giggling.

Magnus snarled in disgust and lifted himself off the ground and its filth. He had what he needed and he stalked away. He ignored the words that followed him — “Circles and cycles… this story has been told and no number of plans will change the steps of the Hero’s Journey…” — and left Prowl in the darkness of Cybertron’s underworld.

 .

.

TBC

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...anyone got a scrub brush and some brain bleach I can borrow...?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl has always come for Ultra Magnus’ offering of energon. That’s how this exchange works: energon for access to that marvelous tactical computer. This time though… Prowl comes, but he doesn’t _submit_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of the chapters written for my writing group’s dialogue challenge (write a story where the plot is mostly carried by the dialogue). There are huge gaps in the story between chapters, and I still don’t know if they’re going to end up being part of _Cassandra_ or a different story in the series, so don’t be surprised if chapters get added between chapters.

“Not this time Magnus,” the mech said from the darkness. The cube of energon shed only a meager light on the rubble around him, and without the light of the mech’s own optics to pinpoint him by… Ultra Magnus snarled. He’d known, intellectually how easy it was for the the grey mech to hide down here, but never in all the millennia since he’d brought him here had the creature failed to come for the offering. He switched on his headlights and turned to the voice, but saw no sign, and when the creature continued, it was from a different direction. He growled; he didn’t like these games. “I have fueled well from stealing Decepticon scraps. The atoms dance and bid me to speak, and for once I have the ability and inclination to do so such that one of your limited experience can understand. The moment will not last; I intend to make the most of it.”

Realization bolted through him like a lightning strike. “You knew,” he snarled. “You knew the Decepticons would find energon.”

“Of course,” Magnus whirled to face the too-close voice again, but was too late to catch him in the beams, slipping away like a single eddy of acid during a storm. 

“Why did my plans not account for it?” He roared, scraps vibrating precariously. When he got his hands on the _creature_ he was going to rend it into scrap metal!

“Snips and snails and artillery shells, that’s what nasty Autobots are made of… “ The sound of a surprisingly strong engine snarling in frustration, then he continued, “ _Your_ plans Magnus. _You_ fed me the information. _You_ set the parameters. You never wanted my _help_ Magnus. You never listened to _any_ of my warnings.” 

There was a skitter and Magnus caught sight of the trailing edge of a foot as the creature scrambled over the rubble with unnatural, animal-like agility. He stepped forward, intent on catching the little traitor. The rubble shifted precariously beneath his bulk; the creature laughed. He climbed up onto the end of an I-beam sticking up from the ground and perched there like a demented seeker, spreading his doorwings wide for balance. Magnus took another step forward and growled as he was forced to scramble back as the rubble crumbled away and fell down into the next layer of Cybertron. 

“I can still help you,” the creature crooned. “But the tactical computer… The Call has been heard and answered. The Hero has crossed the first threshold and no tactical computer will take into account the shape of myth and legend.” Magnus snarled, still enraged and his blasters charged, lining up his shots on the mad, treacherous thing. “No neat columns of numbers, no careful plans will change the steps of the Hero’s Journey.”

Magnus paused, the energy almost stuttering to a stop in the barrels. Rage didn’t so much falter, as coil in his tank, leashed by realization. “You’ve said that before.”

“Many times,” Prowl tilted his helm, dull red crest a comparatively bright slash of color against metal and rust. Yellow optics glinted, the glass reflecting his headlights, but not producing any light of their own. Off still. How often did he really use them anyway? “Stars to dust and dust to stars…”

“TALK SENSE!” he roared, and dust rained from the cavern’s ceiling, and he was forced to back up again as the gap between them widened.

Finally the mech switched on his optics, flickering a few times with disuse before steadying, dim and gold. “All this is a dream. Even the stars are not what they appear to be. Light and time and space and gravity all conspire to create realities which lie beyond mortal experience. Only the _Other_ can see everything for what it is, and we have all been shaped to tell a story of Its design. I can guide you to the myth’s end, Magnus; the computer you value cannot.”

Rage remained banked, leashed. Control… he wanted to control over this creature, but if he was honest with himself (which he rarely was, and those rare occasions were all in this mech’s presence; another reason to hate him) he’d never been in control down here. He glared up, across the new chasm, and the glimmering of a new plan started forming. “You say you will still help me. You’ve been to the Decepticon mining facility. Tell me how to take it. Or destroy it.”

Doorwings flicked, lifting briefly in interest or victory, then going back to their previous balancing position. “As you know, the new energon source is deep in the Sea of Rust. The facility is too well guarded for your current forces — don’t look at me like that Magnus; you’ve left behind an assessment of your own armies every time you’ve hacked into me — but you might be able to steal one of the shipments on its way to the Hydrax Plateau.”

“How?”

“A small, fast strike team. Arcee, Smokescreen, and yourself in command. Chase it down and take it over. That’s a simple enough plan. Even you should be able to do that without my holding your hand. Afterwards, you may have the energon you need to attack the facility itself. Smokescreen will betray you… he covets all you have, I taste in in his tire treads.”

“Yes…” Magnus rumbled, still keeping his temper carefully leashed. If he wanted to keep — to catch and cage and _break_ — this useful creature, he couldn’t frighten Prowl off now. He turned and walked slowly back to the staircase, he looked back. Meeting gold optics as he slowly put the energon cube at the base of the stairs; despite the claim that he was well-fueled he could see how much interest Prowl had in the fuel. “You’ve earned your keep,” he snarled, “despite this rebellion. Savor it. I won’t be leaving another.”

The shadow of doorwings flicked a few times in response. “ _N = R* x f_ _p_ _x n_ _e_ _x f_ _l_ _x f_ _i_ _x f_ _c_ _x L_ … The equation cannot be solved without assigning numbers to the variables. All of them are purely speculative…The assumptions inherent therein are ultimately flawed…”

Whatever that meant. Ultra Magnus guessed that meant the creature’s period of lucidity was over. He ascended the stairs… but not too far. He needed to be close enough to capture Prowl when he gave into temptation…

.

.

.

tbc


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Prowl’s defiance, Ultra Magnus’ trap crumbles on top of him, and he pays the price (but not quite a limb or a life) for lesson in hunting sentient prey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I warned that there were gaps in the story and to potentially expect chapters to be added mid-story... this one (and the at least one more that comes after it) was kinda the chapter I was warning about. Written for the writing group's multiple drafts challenge.
> 
> Thank you to FHC_Lynn and 12drakon for beta reading this chapter.

More eerie than helpful, the spectral blue glow of the energon cube shed little light in the omnipresent darkness, but Magnus dared not turn on his headlights and spoil his trap. He didn’t have to wait long though before a particular silhouette interposed itself between his high vantage point and the bait. He watched while Prowl approached the cube left behind. The mech’s doorwings twitched, scanning for danger, but his dimmed optics remained locked on the cube itself. Did he not seen Magnus hiding in the debris above him? Or, if he did, was the lure of refined energon too much a temptation for him? The feral might have fed well on Decepticon scraps as of late, but millennia of starvation had left their mark.

The larger mech forced himself to be patient, to keep quiet. The desire to grab the traitorous little feral  clawed at his ember, but he made himself wait. Wait while Prowl crept toward the cube. Wait until he was fully in view. Wait while he sniffed at the cube cautiously. Wait while he paused to scan his surroundings one last time.

Wait while he drank from the cube.

Magnus even waited for Prowl to be nearly done with the fuel, to become completely engrossed in licking the last droplets of energon from the bottom and sides of the cube. When he was fully captivated by the fuel and had no chance to notice the mech waiting to ambush him…  _ Then _ Magnus pounced, dropping onto the mech with a  _ CRASH _ .

Prowl screeched and clawed at the ground as it gave out beneath them, desperately trying to hold on. But the larger mech’s momentum, combined with his greater weight and unyielding grip, dragged the feral down into the depths with Magnus.

They tumbled through beams and rusted sheet metal, Prowl’s cries and Magnus’s snarls of effort and pain were drowned out by the crashes and crunches of the metallic layers of Cybertron, until they finally landed on something that might be considered solid for the simple reason that it did not also give way beneath them. Bits of debris hit their plating with  _ clink! _ sounds that seemed quiet after the crashes of the fall itself. Metal creaked and shifted, threatening to give way again, but it held. Somewhere in the distance, another avalanche roared, echoing through the honeycomb of forgotten spaces.

Magnus’ own plating crumpled as he took the brunt of their tear through the layers of metal. Prowl, as agile as ever, scrambled for purchase on the metal debris slanting above them, trying to claw his way up and out of Magnus’ grip. With a growl of his huge engine, Magnus hauled his full weight on top of his captive, straddling him to hold him down. Prowl’s thinner plating dented and warped beneath the Autobot’s mass. He smiled when the smaller mech cried out in pain, a little sound he’d never heard during any of their previous encounters. His pain didn’t seem to hinder his panicked struggles: the wild mech slapped Magnus in the face with his doorwings. He repeated his attack deliberately when Magnus flinched. The Autobot pressed his weight harder, using his greater bulk to squash the mech’s flailings. Prowl quieted just for a moment, then jerked upwards with all his surprising strength, twisted, and gouged his chevron into the circuitry of Magnus’ faceplate, barely missing the optic.

_ “Frag!” _ Magnus cursed, grabbing the mech’s head and forcing it to the ground, holding that chevron away from anything it could damage. Energon dripped sluggishly from the gash and coated the dull red of Prowl’s chevron with bright, glowing blue.

Prowl let his head be forced to the ground, audio-down, and then, when Magnus shifted to get a better grip,  _ bit. _

With a roar of pain from Magnus, the finger came away at the joint, where the armor was the thinnest. Though the injury was smaller than most he had suffered in the past, it was, in its own way, as painful as getting shot. Magnus pulled away… not a lot, but just  _ enough _ . Like a greased crystal snake, the feral slipped out from beneath the much-larger mech.

With an engine-growl that echoed in the cavern they’d fallen into, Magnus regained control of himself, glaring at the feral mech, who was looking down at him from a perch halfway up the hole they’d made when they fell. Plain metal blended into plain metal. It was only the dim gold optics that let Magnus know the mech had not fled completely. He gazed down at the trapped Autobot with an indescribable hunger.

Time hung for a moment, then Prowl sucked the remaining energon from his prize and spat out the finger. He licked away the energon that had splattered around his lips when he’d bit through Magnus’ tubes and plating. Then he wiped the energon off his chevron, fastidiously licking the fuel from his fingers. Predatory, his optics followed Magnus’ minor wounds, tracking the slow drips of fuel that puddled on the ground. He leaned forward and found a handhold that would bring him back down to the trapped Autobot, his hunger no longer indescribable.

Rage blurred Magnus’ vision, tinting the darkness red. He was no one’s  _ prey! _ A massive gun replaced his uninjured arm and he shot upwards at the feral, who abandoned the trapped mech and fled. The blast hit the unstable side of the hole…

...which promptly fell in on Magnus.

By the time he managed to dig his way free, Prowl was nowhere to be seen.

.

.

.

tbc


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mad and (sometimes) blind, Prowl is so obviously a quest-giver in a Dungeons and Dragons game it really shouldn’t have surprised Ultra Magnus when this time he gave him a fetch quest instead of answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of the chapters written for my writing group’s dialogue challenge (write a story where the plot is mostly carried by the dialogue). There are huge gaps in the story between chapters, and I still don’t know if they’re going to end up being part of _Cassandra_ or a different story, so don’t be surprised if chapters get added between chapters.

Today he had no patience for Prowl’s antics. He kicked the mech as he crawled out of the crate Magnus kept him in most of the time. “Optics on,” he snarled. 

The mech just crept forward, taking the kick and honing in on Magnus’ location by the sound of his and the direction of the impact. Affectionately Prowl rubbed his helm against the larger mech’s shin-plate, dull red chevron putting faint scratches in the armor. “Autobots advance,” he crooned softly to the metal and wires of Magnus’ leg. Prime’s words. From the most recent battle. “Crush the miserable Decepticons, grind them under your wheels. For the glory—“

Magnus kicked the mech away from him, crumpling the plating on his chest plate and sending him crashing into the nearby wall. “I will have none of your nonsense today!” he roared to the heap of metal now laying against the wall. As always, he was incensed to see the mech’s plating shaking with laughter. The chevron peaked out from beneath a sparking, dislocated doorwing showing the still-dark optics and Magnus stalked forward, grateful to have an excuse beyond the mech’s constant laughter to kick him again, this time smashing Prowl’s kneecap. “Optics ON,” he snarled again as Prowl howled, voice turning to static with the pain.

Finally, while he twitched and his fans panted in pain and effort, the mech’s optics flickered, flared and finally settled on a dim yellow glow that was barely brighter than the dark glass had been when they’d been off. “This is a dream,” he stated clearly, voice surprisingly steady after that howl. The fans quieted to a mere whisper. “When you start moving out into the cosmos at anything near the speed of light, the first thing to be lost is your understanding of reality.” Magnus growled, deep and low and promising dire consequences if the mech didn’t stop rambling. The mech’s thoughts were as mad as his words, but he _was_ capable of some measure of coherency. Sometimes. “So impatient Amoris,” the mech scolded as he pulled himself from the heap he’d fallen as and into a posture more befitting an injured animal. “You haven’t even asked your question.”

“The Matrix. What is it?”

“You sure do like the difficult ones, Amoris.” Prowl licked at the crumpled plating of his knee, lathing away a tiny trickle of energon until the tube there stopped leaking. “The floor of the pit is stained. Bright blue of spilled energon having long since dried and flaked away, leaving the metal discolored…” He trailed off, shook his head as though clearing it. “Frag…All this is a dream, I am only guide to myth’s end… _frag._ ” He could have been cussing about the state of his knee-joint, which was likely wrecked, but Magnus had never seen him truly affected by the injuries Magnus had inflicted on him in the past. He screamed when they happened (sometimes, not often) and nursed them afterwards, but never mentioned them. “We are in the _Enemy’s_ shadow, the very _eve_ of convergence — _convergence must not come unopposed by hero and villain alike_ is the only guiding prophecy since the loss of the first and third. He sent the book away with the rest…” the mech shook his head and his engine snarled in frustration. He paused, regained his grip on relative coherency, and said in a slow, measured tone. “This time, the answer you seek comes with a price, Amoris.”

Wordlessly Magnus unsubspaced the cube of energon — fresh, clean, _potent_ energon from the Autobots’ single new mine on this forsaken organic mud ball. Energon for answers; that was how it had always worked. Prowl’s optics locked onto it with the same hungry desire he always did, doorwings trying to lift and focus on it as well, but the dislocated one only twitched and sparked.

That injury — one that should have been devastating to one of his frame type — didn’t make Prowl flinch either. He did sigh though, engine whining with _want_ but letting his optics fall to the ground. “Not that sort of price, Amoris. Not this time. This time it must be a true sacrifice: a quest undertaken at the behest of the oracle whom holds your answer.”

Rage, red and hot, blasted through him and Prowl scuttled to the side, back towards his crate without regard for his injuries at all. “You expect me to run an _errand_ for you!”

“Not me!” the dull grey mech yelped as he ducked into the crate. “I would give you the answer you seek if I could, but the Other holds its secrets close. The stars are not what they appear to be. Threads of tale-weavings… A tale spun of dungeons and dinobots — a gazebo? really? well I won’t anger it then — The proper forms must be followed, the steps taken in the proper order, or _none_ of us will make it to myth’s end.” He crouched in his crate as though its flimsy sides would protect him from Magnus’ rage. The box was barely big enough for him to fit inside.

“And what,” he growled threateningly; that crate would not protect him if Magnus decided to shoot him, “happens at the ‘myth’s end’?”

Dim yellow optics seemed brighter in the deep shadows of the crate. “Everything, Amoris. Everything one of our race could ever want will be granted unto the Hero and he will return to Cybertron with the it as the one master of destiny… There are only a handful of stories that can be told. Everything happens in the last episode.”

Magnus stopped, rage grinding to a screeching halt. “Everything?”

“Yesssss,” the shadows in the crate hissed, “What is it you desire, Amoris? To cast down Prime, grind him beneath your wheels as he has you… That’s why you came to me today, assssking about the Matrix. He finally let loose a firestorm to bring down the _Nemisis_ and you decided you wanted its power.”

They’d seen each others’ thoughts — hacked and counter-hacked each other so many times — there was no use in denying it. And twisted and mad as Prowl was, even if he was ever in a position to tell another ember of Magnus’ wants and desires there would be no one else who could sort the gems from the ravings of a truly mad mech. “Yes.”

“Then the proper forms musssst be followed. I am the mad, blind oracle… obviously a quest giver, in any story ever told. And if you want my answers, my help, then you mussst take my quest. A sacrifice…”

“What sort of sacrifice?”

Dim yellow optics blinked off in the dark. “Only the sacrifice of your pride, Amoris. Only the errand. For now. Bring me a measure of the Enemy’s blood — three crystals, each at least as large as your ember — and the corpse of a mech.  Bring those two things to me and I will tell you all I know of the Matrix… _and_ how to surpass it in power. And then, Amoris, _only_ then will we see how much _you_ are willing to sacrifice for your dreamsss.”

Magnus slammed the crate shut on the mech’s cackling laughter.

.

.

.

tbc


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Congratulations Ultra Magnus, you completed your fetch quest. Now what?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place immediately after Rizobact's wonderful [This Dark and Twisty Road](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7797898)
> 
> This chapter is also unbeta'd

Ultra Magnus didn’t wait for Prowl to crawl out of the crate before dumping the corpse on the ground. It leaked a trickle of energon, which Prowl carefully avoided as he crawled over the corpse to stretch his uninjured doorwing.

“What,” Ultra Magnus said with dark amusement. “You’re not going to eat it?”

Prowl looked at him like he  — _Ultra Magnus —_  was the crazy one. Disconcerting with the mech’s optics off. Then his expression changed. Madness. “Oh Amoris, you’ve fed me your enemies enough that by now you should know that I prefer my prey _alive.”_

The Autobot snarled. He _did not_ want to think about just _what_ and _whom_ Prowl would eat if he weren’t kept contained in that crate.  Ultra Magnus _had_ fed the creature Decepticons before, and Prowl had taken his bites out of Ultra Magnus’ plating when he was incautious dealing with him. The mad creature had this very strange _exchange_ he did with Ultra Magnus, but he knew better than to think that meant the creature had any hesitation about considering _all_ sources of fuel he could reach edible.“You asked for a corpse.”

“Yesss,” Prowl poked at the thing’s grey plating. “And a very fine specimen of a corpse she is. Killed her yourself… a bond, from life to death, from death to new life. The cycle of order and chaos.” He manipulated the joints and servos of the corpse’s nearest hand. He tilted his hand to listen. “A clean death wound too. A merciful death? I’m surprised Amoris.”

“Shut up,” Ultra Magnus growled. “I brought you your corpse. Tell me how to surpass the matrix in power.”

“Be quiet! Talk! Make up your mind Amoris. What do you want?”

_“Tell me.”_

Prowl clicked scoldingly. “So impatient. You were also supposed to bring two crystals of the Blood of the Enemy. Without them, she will not serve you.”

“You could be more specific about what that means.” Nevertheless, Ultra Magnus pulled the two purple energon-like crystals he’d taken from the site from his subspace. “I will _cut_ those riddles from you one day. Are these what you need?”

The feral hissed and skittered away. “Yessss.”

Ultra Magnus stalked forward and Prowl skittered away on his injured knee again. “What _possible_ purpose could you have for these.”

“Not me,” Prowl yelped, ducking under a kick to continue fleeing from the crystals. “The toll was the quest. The sacrifice your pride, and now you literally hold what you seek. They are the _means,_ Amoris. Congratulations. Quest completed. You hold the power to become something new. Something powerful.”

That stopped Ultra Magnus; Prowl took the opportunity to duck behind his crate to hide. He regarded the strange purple crystals. His scanners told him they were energon, but he could plainly see they were not. “How?”

Prowl peeked out, optics still dark. “It is the Blood of the Enemy. Symbiosis, Amoris. Symbiosis. As Prime is bonded to one, you will command the power of the other.”

“Stop your riddles and be specific!”

The feral hopped up onto the crate, balancing easily despite the sparks coming from his still-dislocated doorwing. “Rightly a prospective lich really should do all the research himself,” Prowl said matter-of-factly, “I’m sure even you could figure _something_ out with what I’ve already given you. But!” he yelped when Ultra Magnus transformed his arm to a very large gun and it lit up, ready to fire, “I will! You’ve paid in blood,” Prowl cackled, “and _blood_ for your answer Amoris. I _can_ give it to you now.”

“Stop. Stalling.”

“You’re no fun,” Prowl pouted. “Where’s your sense of _drama,_ Amoris. This _is_ the proper moment in a story for drama.”

Ultra Magnus just growled.

“Fine.” Prowl settled more firmly on his crate, sitting almost cross-legged. His injured knee didn’t quite bend. “The Matrix is an object of mystical power. It bonds to the chosen mech’s ember and the mech becomes a conduit for something much greater. Anything that can match or surpass the Matrix in power would work in the same way.”

The Autobot regarded the crystals he still held dubiously. “How?”

“Surely,” the feral said brightly, cheerfully, “I don’t need to walk you through the mechanics of opening your ember containment. You didn’t strike me as an _inexperienced_ mech.”

Ultra Magnus backhanded Prowl right off the crate. He crashed to the floor, cackling hysterically.

“How,” the Autobot growled, stomping around the crate to kick the feral, denting his grey plating, “do I bond this thing to my ember. Answer me!”

“Really, Amoris,” the mech drawled. He didn’t bother moving. “It’s a mystical ritual of untold power, not _rocket surgery._ There’s no buttons to push, levers to pull. Sure, I could tell you mystical symbols and signs to draw. Candles to light, cycles of the moon and sun. But that just complicates something that is completely and utterly _simple._ You have everything you need to achieve Symbiosis. So just _get to it.”_

Still Ultra Magnus hesitated.

Prowl finally moved, rolling over and landing on his feet. “Maybe I should have given this gift to another.”

“What?” Ultra Magnus hissed.

“Well, if you’re going to be such a _coward_ about it…” Prowl didn’t even get to finish. Another kick sent him flying. “Taking your anger out on me doesn’t make it any less true, Amoris. You’re hesitating. You’re _afraid.”_ He crawled around the room circling Ultra Magnus. “There is no power without sacrifice, Amoris. No power without pain. Should I tell you how Prime screamed when he took the Matrix? Would that make you feel braver? I can’t. Orion _didn’t_ scream as he was torn apart from the ember out, tortured, and reshaped into the Prime.”

That did it. Tormented by the thought that he was somehow _less_ than that simpering archivist for his hesitation, Ultra Magnus opened up his chest to expose his ember. The red light bathed the room, overwhelming the pale glow of the crystal as he held it aloft.

He watched as he plunged it into his own ember.

.

.

.

tbc


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After convergence Prowl has one last offering for Ultra Magnus and it brings his own fairy tale full circle, from beginning to end to beginning again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of the chapters written for my writing group’s dialogue challenge (write a story where the plot is mostly carried by the dialogue). There are huge gaps in the story between chapters, and I still don’t know if they’re going to end up being part of _Cassandra_ or a different story, so don’t be surprised if chapters get added between chapters.
> 
> This chapter takes place after _She Wolf_ which can be found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11153472/chapters/24887742

No fantasy brought on by the echoing loneliness of Cybertron’s godless depths this time — this place, this Earth-place that called to the power in his ember, _was_ a temple, as ruined as any of those buried edifices under Iacon. Glass crunched underfoot as he ducked through a whole that had once been a wall and into the dim space within. The Empty — it wasn’t like the Empties on Cybertron, but Magnus had no other name for the undead creature he’d created — followed clumsily, a bit more of the wall crumbling in its wake. Time had taken its toll, but looters had avoided it for a thousand years. No more than an eyblink to one of Magnus’ race, true, but an incredibly long time for such a place to remain untouched by the short-lived parasites that inhabited this world. 

Untouched by humans, he corrected himself, but not by the forces that shaped the planet itself.

Birds scattered from their nests in crumbing eaves and broken statues at his approach and flew out of holes where scattered stones had crumbled from the ceiling and let in sparse rays of sunlight, which joined the colored illumination that shone through the windowpanes that still contained stained glass windows in various states of broken and decay. The pews and altar had both rotted away long ago and he walked not on solid stone and fiber decorations, but layers and layers of decaying leaves. Dirt and death. 

In the bright spotlight provided by the largest opening to the sky, a young tree grew. Reaching up with thin branches and leaves so bright the glowed in the dim interior of the church. New life, but also another sign of decay. Entropy. Chaos. 

And beneath it all, the corpses left after a battle that had taken place a million years before the first temple-stone had been laid. The last congealed dregs of energon clinging to the empty veins, the rusted metal, the empty ember-chambers… the death and decay of his own race called to him with a resonance stronger than the entropy of this planet. And this was only one of many such ancient battle sites that dotted this planet, buried and forgotten. 

This time Magnus _felt it_ in his extinguished ember when he stepped into the sacred space.

He paced forward stepping on the dais and gazing at the fallen edifice that had once hung above where the altar would have been. Now it lay where it had fallen when the fasteners holding in place had failed, propped against the wall and listing to the side. Gold had withstood entropy better than the wood and cloth or even the iron bits and pieces of things that were still scattered around it. A human male on a cross. An emblem of death, meant to serve as a promise of eternal life. Magnus made a note to try crucification when next he had an opportunity. A Cybertronian would be affected differently than a human body, but the results should still be excruciating. Maybe he should save it for Prime.

“Or Megatron,” a voice — a very familiar voice — crooned from behind him and Magnus whirled. He had played this game far too many times not to know what was coming. 

“Prowl,” he growled, searching for the mad prophet. Unpainted metal should not have blended into the browns and greens and grey stones of Earth as it had in the lightless depths of Cybertron, but Magnus did not immediately see the Praxan, though his voice had come from inside the ruined cathedral. “Why did you call me here?”

“One free answer, if you think you can understand it: Why do you and I cross paths at any given intersection of space and time and narrative? By your will or mine… we are slaves to the _Other’s_ design. You call, I come; I call, you come. Convergence came and we played our parts, but the fact is that the _Enemy_ has always been a footnote. A season finale… not whole of a story to shape our strength.” Finally the mech moved, his dull red chevron tilting and with that movement the rest of his body — the sightless optics, the sharp tilt of the doorwings, the long tapered claws that _scritched_ over the stone he crouched on — took shape, as though the mech had not existed before that moment. 

Unicron, or something to do with the now-slumbering dark god. The anti-ember… since taking on symbiosis with the anti-energon that Prowl had called _The Blood of the Enemy,_ Magnus had felt like he was on the very edge of something. If he could take that final step he could finally touch what Prowl had so obviously touched, know what he so obviously knew… he only had to take a single step further. One last sacrifice, if only he could figure out what _to_ sacrifice. 

But did he want to? Prowl had, he knew that now, the same way he knew the coppery taste of the anti-energon that now flowed through his veins, the same way he could — if he thought there would be a use for such a thing — weave the threads of decay that ran through the temple into a new shape of entropy, the same as he knew the rattling breath and the pulse of unnatural life that burned in the Empty he had created. Prowl had, and Prowl was not, by any possible measure, sane.

A thin, sardonic smile graced the mad Praxan’s lips. “Do you have another question for me Amoris?”

Time and time again, Prowl had demonstrated knowledge of things he _could not_ have known, of things that had happened in the long-dead past or things yet to come, or simply in the present which he had not been present to observe. For all the power Magnus had been granted by symbiosis, he still only knew what his senses could tell him. Would knowing all that Prowl knew, would swimming in waters Magnus only touched with the tip of his foot, be worth that on top of whatever sacrifice the power itself demanded of him? He didn’t know, and that more than anything kept him from asking. Last time Prowl had offered him power, he hadn’t asked the price. The sacrifice had been his ember, and he was still tallying the true cost of that power. This time he would not jump so blindly into Prowl’s promises. “Why are we here?”

“An imprecise question, with an answer too big for any but the _Other_ to provide. What you mean is _Why did I call you to this place and time and not to any of an infinite number of others?_ Which is an easy question, Amoris, but one with an un-easy answer, but… no sacrifice, no quest, I think should be required this time; only a simple toll.”

Magnus didn’t need energon anymore and didn’t generally carry it. But he had recognized the cadence of the summons, even if Prowl had never once shown a capability for radio transmissions before, and had brought it. Energon had always been the cheapest price for anything Prowl had ever given him, and Earth had even fewer sources for wild fuel than dead Cybertron had.

Silently he unsubspaced the cube he’d brought and stepped over to the center of the room and put it down. Then he went back to the dais to watch.

Prowl crawled with the grace of a wild animal. Like a wolf or a great cat. A predator. He moved easily and Magnus could see where recent repairs had been done, which explained how he’d survive the destruction of what had been left of the _Ark_ and the time since. There was even the faint traces of darker and lighter grey blooming across his otherwise unpainted plating, signs that his surface nanites were beginning to recover from his long starvation, the slight variations doing their part to camouflage him in Earth’s shadows. There was only place he could have gotten the repairs and that much fuel. With his own experiences with Prowl’s madness, he took a sort of fierce joy in the certainty that whether Prowl had helped or hindered them while in their keeping, the Decepticons had regretted their kindness afterward.

Once rage at the perceived treachery might have consumed him, but he now toed waters Prowl had been swimming for as long as they’d orbited each other. The rage still burned, simmering beneath his other emotions as it always had. The berserker fury that had been his hallmark on the battlefield was easier to call forth than it had ever been before symbiosis, but it couldn’t be summoned in response to Prowl’s idiosyncrasies. Not anymore. Loyalty and betrayal weren’t even concepts that could be applied to either of them now. So it was with an alien sense of peace that he performed the steps of the dance they’d been waltzing to since he’d found Prowl (or had Prowl found him?) after the destruction of Praxus.

It was with the same frame-hunger he’d always had that Prowl snatched the cube from where Magnus had placed it, but instead of instantly consuming it, he subspace it with an economical flourish. That was new, but Magnus wasn’t surprised. The Decepticons had soft embers. If they had it, they’d have given their captive the energy he needed and he knew first hand the mental strength of Prowl’s mad thoughts; no programmed blocks against accessing subspace or weapons would hold for long. Fuel safely stored for later, Prowl retreated back to the rock. He settled like a cat and absently scratched long, sharp — no longer crude — claws over the stone.

“My question,” he growled with an echo of his old temper when a long moment passed in silence.

“Patience, Amoris. It’s coming.”

Magnus knew better than to ask another question. Prowl would only laugh.

So he waited, with his temper simmering beneath the detachment, and a sourceless anticipation curling through his dead ember. This… he could only describe it as being on the precipice of a cliff, feeling the updrafts, and coiling his tension cables for a jump. And he didn’t know yet if he was himself, who would fall like the hunk of metal he was, or if he would fly like a seeker. 

From the clear blue sky, lightning struck the ground inside the temple. 

Ozone, smoke a flash of light and fire, and Magnus blinked away the dark polarization of his optics until he could see again. Prowl of course, with his habit of keeping his optics off, was entirely unaffected.

The sunlight was no longer the brightest source of light in the dim temple. A sword, jagged and crude and glowing with the characteristic luminance of anti-energon was thrust into the stone floor, the leaves and dirt and built up decay of a thousand years burned away in an instant. The scent of burned leaves, scorched stone and cooked meat joined the overpowering one of the ozone in the air. 

“That is…?” Magnus didn’t even have the words.

Prowl did though. “Behold the Dark Star Saber. The Darksaber. It hasn’t been forged yet and the one who would forge it cannot even so in this intersection of time and space, but time and walls between universes are illusions that do not apply to artifacts such as this. The raw power of chaos, shaped by the tools of order, forged by the wills of an avatar of each fused together at the shoulder… It is the last thing you need to surpass the Matrix bearer.”

His claws _scritched, scritched_ over the stone again, leaving grooves and he continued. “The beginning and the end, the gateway unto victory and defeat… the last tool. Your slave and your master, Magnus. This is where it fell— _will fall_ — from it’s forger’s hand, through void and fire, the impact resonating in all possible multiversal directions and changing every story, every tale, in it’s wake. We are all it’s legacy and you it’s next master. If you dare to take it up. The power to transform,” a tilt of his head, as though in remembrance, “… anything, if you can harness it. I did — just once, and I am the only one left of a thousand other selves who tried, but in the doing I changed… everything.”

“I don’t trust you anymore Prowl.” Nor, he thought, did he strictly _dis_ trust him either, but every boon had come with hidden costs. Some he still couldn’t see what the tariffs had really been, but he recognized that just because he couldn’t _see_ the consequences as they fell like dominos from a single action didn’t mean they weren’t prices paid.

“Nor should you,” Prowl agreed and Magnus finally noticed that not only had the rambling tangents that were Prowl’s normal expression of thought had so far been minimal, but so had the expressions of frustration that had previously characterized his tenuous grasp on lucidity. Which had changed — Prowl or Magnus? Or neither… was this moment itself simply too powerful to layer with symbols and rhymes? “This is as far as I can guide you. Long ago I asked which you were: A hero or a dragon or simply a nameless obstacle for the hero to step on on his way to the villain?” Silently Magnus deleted his observation about the lack of metaphoric rambling. Some of it even made sense, and it was disturbing to realize he had been changed that much by the anti-energon. “That fate had not yet been written, your importance to the tale not yet decided. You decided, Magnus, and with symbiosis you outgrew the too-tight snakeskin of being only a nameless stat block and shed it to become The Dragon. Now you have a choice again… continue in Prime’s shadow, treacherous but always beneath his wheels, or become a Dragon Ascendant. I care not which choice you make — convergence has come and gone and with it much of my role in the tale — and any further aid I could provide you would only aid in your defeat. Thus are the steps of the hero’s journey.” The Praxan’s doorwings tilted, listening. “Decide quickly, Amoris.”

And then Magnus heard what Prowl did — seeker engines — only a moment before the first cluster bomb hit the church.

Magnus struggled from the dirt and the broken stone. Smoke scrambled his sensors and blocked his vision. Prowl was gone; he knew first hand how quick the mad-mech was and with even only a split second’s warning… he was gone, but Magnus wasn’t. Rubble fell away as he struggled to his feet. The berserker rage licked at the edge of his mind, but he was at a disadvantage here on the ground.

And he was alone, save for the Empty — no more capable of flight than he was — and the ranks of corpses buried beneath the cathedral. Some had been seekers.

The seekers turned to make a second pass, and the distinctive roar of Megatron’s jet-engine joined them. Magnus looked over at the sword — the Darksaber. Despite the blast and the rubble the artifact was untouched. It glowed softly, whispering it’s promises of power. It was life to him, death to his enemies. It was the beginning and the end. It had been forged to slay a Prime and these upstart Decepticons were _nothing_ compared to the power of the Matrix…

This time the cluster bombs seemed to drop in slow motion. Magnus heard the whistle of the air as they fell. He made his decision. 

His hand closed around the hilt of the sword and he surrendered to the berserker rage. “ARISE MY LEGION!”

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.

end...?


End file.
